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Estate Agents Selling Agreements, Explained

24-02-2008, 10:34 AM

Hello, an article i wrote a few weeks back, see what you think.

With a far from clean reputation, when dealing with Estate Agents in today’s market home-owners have discovered the need to be on their guard and do some due diligence in how the Agents operate, if that is in actual fact the route of selling you wish to take. With countless reports slamming the workings of Agents including the BBC’s Whistleblowers documentary and the Which? Consumer report, consumer confidence remains to be at an all time low.

When deciding to market your property with an Agent, home-owners tend to overlook the fact that in doing so you are required commit to a legally binding contract and like most contracts there is certain time parameter to the contract varying on Agents. Which type of contract you commit to is up to you; however some would disagree judging by the pressure put on by some underhand Agents to opt for a more beneficial agreement in their favour, rather than that of many unsuspecting home-owners.

So, what are these agreements we speak of, which you may or may not have previously heard of? In simple summary the four agreements are as follows.

1. Sole Selling Agreement

This particular agreement means your Estate Agent which you appoint is the only one with the right to sell your house. Even if you find a buyer yourself, you’ll still have to pay the Agent. So what about if your best friend suddenly decides ‘Yeah I’d love to buy your house off you’ but you have signed the Sole Selling Agreement? You guessed it, the Agent wants paying! Doesn’t quite seem fair does it? Maybe that’s why Agents love to get you in this agreement.

2. Sole Agency Agreement

The Sole Agency Agreement has slightly less ties than the Sole Selling Agreement in that although the appointed Agent is indeed the only ‘Agent’ who can sell your property, you yourself cans sell your property. By using this agreement you are also able to ‘dual sell’ your property by using both an ‘Agent’ and also a reputable Private House Seller like PropertyFlaunt.com. By ‘Agent’ it is meant an Estate Agent who is a member of the National Association of Estate Agents. Obviously Estate Agents are less keen on using this agreement in fear of loosing their commission.

3. Multi agency Agreement

This Agreement means that you can choose multiple Estate Agents to market your house but you will only have to pay commission to the one who sells it.Although this does sound like a good idea almost all agent will not offer this agreement, in order to avoid competition and marketing costs.

4. Ready, willing and able agreement

A very favorable contract to the Agent this agreement means that as long as the Agent finds a buyer for the right price then regardless of weather you want to pull out of selling then you will indeed still have to pay the agents commission, does that sound like good customer service to you?!

When selecting your contract you must be aware that Agents may often add clauses to the agreements or pressure you to having a Sole selling agreement as described above, so if you want to assume full control (as you should do if you choose to pay the extortionate 1.5-3% in Agents fee’s) then avoid the Sole Selling Agreement and opt for the less restricting Sole Agency Agreement.

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